OK, so Breece, lets bring together all the mass mureders in the world about to be put to death and lets put them into a prison by themselves. Now, lets talk about security. It would have to be very tight and the guards undergo a bunch of training so if a break out were to occur they can handle it. Now if there was a breakout, can you imagine about 5K mass murders running around the country?

Sorry if I seem rude, but my point is that the death penalty should be kept, and it should stay at lethal injection. People only have so many chances in life. People that have earned the death penalty, earned that lethal injection. Send the criminals with life imprisonment or smaller crimes to do work. Those that have commited murders or mass murders need the death penalty. Besides, lethal injection is the most humane of all the ways to kill someone.

M4nnE: Ok just the fact that you think killing people can be humane in ANY way is besides me. But anyway I don't understand why none of the pro-death penalty people seem to understand this small but very important fact (you too imagedangerous): when using the death penalty, there is a very good chance that INNOCENT people are incarcerated and eventually executed for something they didn't do! Yes, innocent criminals could also die a life sentence in prison, but the thing is, those life sentence criminals can be taken out when evidence is clear that the real culprit is some else. But, unfortunatley, the death penalty is irrovecable and once someone is executed, that's it. Even if they were innocent, they are dead forever.

What are we supposed to do about that? Anyways look. Would you rather have mass murders in a jail where they can break out,(mind you people are sent to jail everyday and prisons need bigger facilities because of this) and cause harm to more people. Or have a death penalty where 1 out 100,000 people who get it are innocent. And actually the odds are higher than that.

And never did I say that killing people was humane. I said that the only humane way of killing someone, if needed to was by lethal injection.

But what guarantee IS there that the death penalty will deter anything or save families' lives ? Half the time, the person executed (if a terrorrist) ends up looking like a martyr to the criminal community, inspiring more waves of next-generation criminals. Even if this didn't happen, the witnesses' families would be under threat from the executed person's friends and family

Furthermore, rich criminals often escape the penalty by hiring the best lawyers, while the poor (especially the innocent) are left to face the full wrath of the legal system.
Supposing the executed person was innocent, how would you undo that wrong ? If, say the executed person was a victim of racial prejudice
and/or killed in self defence, how would you justify the act of killing him ?

I’m kind of in between about the death penalty. I can see both sides of the argument.
For one, I do indeed believe that there are some people out there who’ve done things so evil, that they no longer deserve to live. Take for example Hitler and the Nazis, or that guy who shot up that Sandy Hook school, in Connecticut. Had most of those people not committed suicide, I would lose no sleep at night knowing that they were going to be executed.
On the flip side, I say who are we to play God? When Cain slew Abel, God didn’t retaliate against Cain by killing him. He did curse him, make him wander the Earth, and punish all of his descendants, but still Cain lived out his life in solidarity. So I say, if even God wasn’t willing to execute the first murderer, then why should we?

Being from Texas, the state with the highest death penalty rate (im pretty sure), it's been discussed with my family at Thanksgiving countless times. Most of my more extreme relatives are in favor of it, the others stay silent. i think this is most often the case. something is passed or happens because good people stay silent--which is me saying that while i agree with the death penalty, i think it's used too easily. when was the last time someone was pardoned in Texas? pretty much never. while this sounds completely random, i think that the death penalty is something that is just going to happen. in some cases, its needed. in others, its not. but i think we should only give someone the death penalty if it can be proven without a doubt that they've committed the crime....

I support the death penalty provided the alternative would be life in prison. I am all for attempting to convert a criminal's negative life into a positive one; however, a life sentence does not allow for the changing of a person within society. If life sentences are to be allowed, the death penalty should be allowed. However, if the opportunity to change a criminal's life for the better exists (and the crime is mild) it should be taken.

It is a law of ethics that punishment should be proportional to an offense. It doesn't make sense to give the same punishment to someone who, say, embezzles a million dollars, and someone who rapes and murders a hundred innocent women.

It shows more respect to people's humanity to punish them accordingly (and thus hold them accountable as human beings) than to refrain from killing them.

"An eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind" is a phenomenal quote. However, this is only applicable to the behavior of individual citizens. Individuals should be infinitely forgiving: I believe that with all my heart. But the justice system should not. Authority does not hold the same status in society as individuals, and thus should not be subject to the same ideals. It is necessary to have a mediator which does, in fact, poke out eyes and remain untouched. A blind man can't aim a gun.

The notion that th death penalty should be abolished because "we might have the wrong guy" is nonsensical. Problem with the judicial system? Fix the problem, don't alter the punishments. It sucks to spend life in prison too, if you're innocent. We must operate under the assumption that our courts have rooted out the truth, else the entire system makes no sense.

Financial arguments pertaining to this do have a lot of substance to me though. I'll have to research that, but they might lead me to change my mind. But it's not in any way I can tell immoral to take a life in lawful punishment of a particularly heinous crime. Gushy demagoguery doesn't do it for me.

"As soon as he finished saying all this, the ground under them split apart, and the earth opened its mouth and swallowed them and their households, and all those associated with Korah, together with their possessions. They went down alive into the realm of the dead, with everything they owned; the earth closed over them, and they perished and were gone from the community. At their cries, all the Israelites around them fled, shouting, 'The earth is going to swallow us too!'"And fire came out from the Lord and consumed the 250 men who were offering the incense." (Numbers 16:31-35)

CollinF-- See, one thing with the court system (specifically in the south of the U.S.) is that a lot of jurors are racist, so when a black man is accused of murdering a white person in the south, I can tell you right off the bat that that black man will be found guilty whether or not the evidence is stacked up against him. So exactly how are we supposed to fix that problem in the court system? The only thing I can come up with is abolishing the death penalty, but if anyone else has any other ideas, I'd love to hear how the court system can be improved. If not, I think it's time to think about the death penalty on a personal level. If YOUR dad was that black man wrongly found guilty of murder and his punishment was the death penalty, how would YOU feel knowing that he was going to be murdered by our government? You have to think of the people that are going to suffer the death penalty as just that--PEOPLE. Every single person killed by the death penalty had some kind of family. At least with a life sentence, those that are innocent have the hope of one day being freed from their eternal prison and being with their family.

Your concern is noble, but I have to say that you're absolutely wrong. I live in South Georgia (As Southern as Southern gets/ most of us still half-hate the North for torching half the state out of spite), and I'd say probably about 1 in every 5,000 whites down here is a racist. And I'm indulging you with that number. It really isn't much of an issue these days. Seriously. Granted, unjust convictions did occurr at least a few times in the distant past, but it doesn't happen anymore. The odds of getting a unanimous verdict based on racism are about none to none. To none.

This is also why the jury selection process exists. Any massively racist rednecks would be weeded out in that process if the defendent were black.

Victims of crimes also have families. Loss of life is tragic, but it doesn't follow that it's to be avoided always. And parole is actually a major problem I have with life sentences. Way more guilty people than non-guilty people get out early, my friend. In fact, my mom had a friend whose daughter was murdered by someone who had committed murder before and been let out on "good behavior."

I also thoroughly believe in that quote. Ghandi's a Boss. However, as I said before, it's directed at individuals. If there was no retribution for punishment dealt out by a third party, then society couldn't exist and I'd call Ghandi an idiot rather than a hero. Just retribution is not revenge. The two are not comparable in the slightest, as far as I can tell.

This is an interesting forum. I guess I'm for it. If someone killed a lot of people his one life cannot replace them that's why that person should pay what is called the ultimate price, his life. "Revenge is never an answer to our problems" however it's not revenge if a 3rd party is deciding it. And also I saw something about the expenses for capital punishment, well all forms of it are cheap, it's just that the justice system processes so many appeals till its a waste of money.